Looking through the history of the forums, we see many YEC vs evolution/old-universe threads. One of the most frustrating things about these threads is that the creationists don't engage the arguments put forth by the other side. When an opposing argument is put forth on one of these threads they fall back to their talking points. This is clearly demonstrated in the recent behemoth of a thread Earth's age at 6000 years. Therefore, in hopes of getting the creationists to engage the opposing arguments I will be creating new, more directed threads whose subjects will revolve around a very particular piece of evidence antithetical to creationist claims. I will try to post two to three new threads a week over the summer. In this thread I would like to discuss human chromosome two.
In the aforementioned thread human chromosome number two was brought up as evidence that human beings evolved from ancestral apes, though it was never addressed by the other side. All great apes except for humans have 24 chromosomes. Humans, however, have only 23 chromosomes. Thus if human beings evolved from ancestral apes we should expect one of our chromosomes to be a fusion of two ancestral chromosomes. We find evidence of such a fusion event on human chromosome number two.
Your typical chromosome contains two telomeres at the ends of the chromosome, and a centromere somewhere near the middle. Human chromosome two has two telomeric regions at the ends, along with a telomeric region in the middle. Furthermore, there are two centromeric regions on human chromosome two, one functional and one non-functional. This is exactly what you would expect to find if two ancestral chromosomes had fused. If you laid out human chromosome two alongside chimpanzee chromosome two and three (labeled chromosomes 2A and 2B in some literature), they line up perfectly. The two centromeric regions on human chromosome two occur at the exact same place where the chimpanzee centromeres occur. The telomeric region in the middle of human chromosome two occurs exactly at the end-points of the analogous chimpanzee chromosomes, as it should if the chimpanzee chromosomes fused. The details of the telomeric region are exactly what you'd expect from a fusion event: a pre-telomeric sequence, a telomeric sequence (TTAGGG repeated), a reversed telomeric sequence (AATCCC repeated), and another pre-telomeric sequence. Finally, under a Giesma stain human chromosome two has the exact same banding pattern as chimpanzee chromosomes 2 and 3 when laid end-to-end.
Since creationism purports to be a scientifically tenable position, what is your scientific explanation for this set of facts. How do you explain the anomalous human chromosome two with its two centromeric regions and three telomeric regions, which is distributed exactly as though it were created by the fusion of two ancestral chromosomes. In light of all the other evidence of evolution, if God did this he is a mastermind deceiver indeed.
In the aforementioned thread human chromosome number two was brought up as evidence that human beings evolved from ancestral apes, though it was never addressed by the other side. All great apes except for humans have 24 chromosomes. Humans, however, have only 23 chromosomes. Thus if human beings evolved from ancestral apes we should expect one of our chromosomes to be a fusion of two ancestral chromosomes. We find evidence of such a fusion event on human chromosome number two.
Your typical chromosome contains two telomeres at the ends of the chromosome, and a centromere somewhere near the middle. Human chromosome two has two telomeric regions at the ends, along with a telomeric region in the middle. Furthermore, there are two centromeric regions on human chromosome two, one functional and one non-functional. This is exactly what you would expect to find if two ancestral chromosomes had fused. If you laid out human chromosome two alongside chimpanzee chromosome two and three (labeled chromosomes 2A and 2B in some literature), they line up perfectly. The two centromeric regions on human chromosome two occur at the exact same place where the chimpanzee centromeres occur. The telomeric region in the middle of human chromosome two occurs exactly at the end-points of the analogous chimpanzee chromosomes, as it should if the chimpanzee chromosomes fused. The details of the telomeric region are exactly what you'd expect from a fusion event: a pre-telomeric sequence, a telomeric sequence (TTAGGG repeated), a reversed telomeric sequence (AATCCC repeated), and another pre-telomeric sequence. Finally, under a Giesma stain human chromosome two has the exact same banding pattern as chimpanzee chromosomes 2 and 3 when laid end-to-end.
Since creationism purports to be a scientifically tenable position, what is your scientific explanation for this set of facts. How do you explain the anomalous human chromosome two with its two centromeric regions and three telomeric regions, which is distributed exactly as though it were created by the fusion of two ancestral chromosomes. In light of all the other evidence of evolution, if God did this he is a mastermind deceiver indeed.